The rain slowed to a fine mist, but the forest still held the sound of water in every leaf and branch. Kael crouched by a fallen log, knife in hand, and pressed the blade against the pad of his thumb.
A single drop of blood welled up, dark in the dim light.
More, the abyss urged. A drop is nothing. Let me give it teeth.
Kael ignored it. He let the blood drip onto a scrap of cloth torn from his tunic. It vanished into the weave, leaving only a faint, metallic tang in the air.
"That's it?" Halric asked, watching from a few paces away. His voice carried skepticism — and something else, a wary distance that hadn't been there before the mire-lurker.
Kael tucked the cloth into a small leather pouch. "That's it. It's not the amount, it's the… scent."
Elara's gaze flicked between them. "And you think they'll follow that instead of you?"
"They will," Kael said with a certainty he didn't entirely feel. The abyss had promised it. Whether that was good or bad remained to be seen.
They will, the voice confirmed, with an edge of satisfaction.
Halric planted the head of his hammer in the mud. "Then where do we send it?"
Kael scanned the trees. "North. Into the high rocks. If they're hunting us, they'll take the harder trail — they'll assume we'd try to hide where the cliffs narrow."
"And while they chase it?" Elara asked.
Kael stood, slinging his pack over one shoulder. "We head east. Through the low marsh. Harder on our feet, easier to vanish."
It took them less than half an hour to prepare the decoy trail. Halric volunteered to carry the pouch, swinging wide to the north before doubling back. When he rejoined them, his cloak was plastered with mud, his boots caked.
"That should buy us time," he said, though the tightness in his jaw suggested he wasn't convinced.
They set out east. The ground quickly turned soft, the trees thinning into pale, leafless things that jutted like bones from the waterlogged earth. Patches of mist clung to the hollows, curling low around their ankles.
The air was different here — quieter, but in a way that pressed on the ears, like sound itself had been dampened.
"This place is wrong," Elara murmured.
"It's old," Halric said. "Marshland swallows what it doesn't like. Men, beasts, whole villages."
The abyss stirred. It swallows, yes. But it does not devour.
Kael kept his eyes moving, scanning the mist for movement. The marsh wasn't just a hiding place — it was a trap in its own right.
They found a strip of firmer ground near dusk, an island of mud and stone no bigger than a market square. Kael signaled for them to stop. "We'll rest here. Just for a few hours."
Elara settled the boy, wrapping him in her cloak. Halric sat on his pack, turning his hammer slowly in his hands.
Kael paced the perimeter, testing each approach for stability. The mist shifted as he moved, curling unnaturally in his wake.
Then he saw it — a ripple in the water, moving against the wind. It slid between the pale trees, vanishing and reappearing, always at the edge of vision.
Not your hunters, the abyss said. This is something else.
Kael's grip tightened on his sword. "Something that's stalking us?"
Something curious.
The ripple came closer, resolving into a shape just beneath the surface — too large to be a fish, too smooth to be a mire-lurker. It circled the island twice before stilling.
Halric noticed his focus. "Problem?"
"Not yet," Kael said. "But keep your hammer close."
They didn't light a fire. The marsh didn't need more reasons to notice them.
Night bled into the mist, turning the water into ink. The boy slept fitfully, Elara keeping one hand on his back. Halric dozed in short stretches, always waking at the slightest sound.
Kael stayed awake. The ripple never left.
Hours later, when the mist began to thin with the first gray hints of dawn, it moved again — not toward them, but away, sliding silently into the deeper channels.
"They're gone," Kael murmured.
"For now," the abyss corrected.
By morning, they were moving again, the marsh slowly giving way to firmer ground. The trees grew taller, straighter, and the air warmed.
They reached a rise where the land sloped toward a distant river. From here, Kael could see a smudge of smoke to the north — faint, but wrong.
"They didn't take the bait," he said.
Halric swore. "Then they split. Some followed it, some followed us."
Elara's eyes met his. "What now?"
Kael studied the river, the forest beyond. The abyss hummed quietly, like it was savoring the choice before him.
"We keep moving," he said finally. "But we stop running blind."
"How?" Halric asked.
Kael slid his sword back into its sheath. "We hunt them first."
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